What the Dark Enlightenment Stands For

“Go to any Catholic Church and they are always collecting for some jungle bunny in bongo bongo land. It’s become an anti-white religion. “Catholic” schools are full of darkies. The Church has completely abandoned the core that made it what it is. See how loyal your new people are when you’ve got no gibsmedat for them.”

—

“The recent Christian support for amnesty and the border invasion was the final straw for me.

I converted to Asatru: http://www.runestone.org/”

“I feel ya, besides I can’t honestly look my blue eyed kids in the eyes and honestly tell them they’re descended from the tribes of Abraham. I rejected the Church at a very young age to the dismay of my parents, but I wouldn’t say I’m an atheist. I’ve recently been introduced to Asatru, it feels right but I’m not sure how I feel about it as a religion, although as a culture and tradition it feels like something I’ve been missing for a long time.”

“Churchianity is now most definitely reheated Cultural Marxism all over.

Ever heard of “sedevacantists”? Those are traditional Catholics who have come to the conclusion that Pope Francis and his five predecessors starting with John XXIII could not possibly be valid Catholic Popes. And I think their Marxism has a lot to do with it, along with their gutting of all the traditional sacraments.

Unfortunately, it’s a fringe opinion at this point — according to Pew Research, only about 4% of American Catholics disapprove of Francis or consider him a change for the worse. But, on the other hand, Hispanics are rapidly defecting from the faith, and white Catholics are vanishing from the Democrat Party. It may take a century, but eventually, at least in the USA, Catholics will almost certainly be mostly white, Republican-voting, and sedevacantist.”

“It may take a century, but eventually, at least in the USA, Catholics will almost certainly be mostly white, Republican-voting, and sedevacantist.”

This is contrary to what demographers are seeing, who predict that in 100 years Catholicism will mostly be a non-Western, non-white religion (mostly African and Latin American mestizo).”

—

“A lot of Christian intellectuals talk about Pope Francis as if he were a family embarrassment, a drunken father or a mother engaged in adultery – yeah, it’s a sin, but there’s already so much damage, that it’s the best to keep it “in the family” and not make any more bad publicity. He’s a commie, but he’s one of our own…

Watching some christian pro-family activists in my country fills me with sadness – they are honest hard working people trying to preserve their ways of life, not noticing that when push comes to shove, their own Church will betray them, stab them in the back and call them sinners. The only way I see Catholicism going back to being a non-left religion is emergence of small elite traditional mass communities who will deny any modern theology, and will keep spreading that movement slowly, parish by parish. At one point they will have to wage war with the Vatican, and I wouldn’t be surprised if the struggle would end up in bloodshed, on one side or another.”

Welcome. Great question! Before an answer, recall that Asatru converts need not abandon that which gives them emotional succor. Elements of Norse paganism (Odin hanging as a sacrifice to himself, e.g.) foreshadow Christianity. Early missionaries to the Vikings often emphasized Christ’s character as a victorious King conquering Hel. Certainly Tolkien could relish the old ways while being a devout Catholic.

And of course, ancestral pagans in Northern Europe chose Catholicism over living, flourishing paganism. Perhaps the best way to honor our ancestors is to respect their ancient choice for Christ, which is one of the thoughts that led me out of neo-Druidry (and it often was a choice, rather than an imposition, although the depredations of Charlemagne in Saxony were shameful). But that’s all emotional. As for proof it’s true:

There are three levels of truth claim for us to defend against paganisms like Asatru: 1. that there is one God (and 1a. that God is Triune), 2. that Christ rose from the dead, and 3. that Catholicism is the fullness of Christianity.

1. For pagan arguments on behalf of monotheism, I would direct you to Aristotle’s “Metaphysics” and Plotinus’ “Enneads.”

1a. There are good deductive arguments for Trinitarian monotheism in Aquinas’ “Summa contra gentiles,” which is freely available online at many websites.

2. As for the Resurrection of Christ (the factual core of Catholicism), there are lots of solid investigations into the veracity of the New Testament accounts. N.T. Wright’s work, e.g., is very fine.

3. For Catholicism rather than other Christian denominations, you might wish to start with any of the very fine works by our gracious host, Mark P. Shea.

Upon having read works like these, you will find that Catholicism is rationally, objectively true, not just subjectively, emotionally true. As Lewis said, you will find that Christianity is like all the ancient myths, except it’s true. All the best to you on your journey!

On the specifically Asatru issue, I think rational proof is less of an issue for most than a sense that by being Asatru, they are vindicating the persecuted paganism of their ancestors; thus, converting to Christianity can feel like a betrayal.

I think the best antidote for this is to read about the courage and wisdom of the “Christian missionaries to Germanic peoples,” (Googling that phrase takes you to a Wikipedia article with a list). Certainly, nothing will cure a young idealist of Druidry faster than reading St. Patrick’s autobiographical “Confessions.” The Teutonic Knights and Charlemagne really did persecute pagans. And many Germanic kingdoms’ conversions were top-down affairs motivated by kings’ geopolitical concerns. But. But. Read about these missionaries, most of them Saxon, German, or Gaelic. Plenty of ancient pagans chose Christianity because it offered something better.

This is true elsewhere, too. Greek paganism evolved via Aristotle and Plotinus toward monotheism among pagan intellectuals, who usually saw the gods as just aspects of the One. A similar evolution happened in Hinduism. If the Norse and Celts had been left alone, they probably would’ve evolved monotheistic interpretations, too, since the deductive metaphysical arguments are accessible to human reason anywhere. Christian missionaries just sped up an evolution that would have happened anyway. Christ fulfills and completes the best of paganism.

Nick Corrado

Greek paganism evolved via Aristotle and Plotinus toward monotheism among pagan intellectuals, who usually saw the gods as just aspects of the One. A similar evolution happened in Hinduism. If the Norse and Celts had been left alone, they probably would’ve evolved monotheistic interpretations, too, since the deductive metaphysical arguments are accessible to human reason anywhere.

Those are really interesting claims! Where did you get that from? Can you recommend a book or two?

For a conceptual (rather than a chronological) introduction, I’d recommend “The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss” by the Orthodox theologian David Bentley Hart. Hart is good on the Greeks, but also good on the montheistic tendencies in Hinduism, which is rarer in Western writers.

If you want some blog posts on the theism of Aristotle and Plotinus, you might want to read Edward Feser’s “Classical Theism Roundup.” (Just google his name and that phrase.) Feser discusses Aristotle at length, and has a trio of posts comparing and contrasting Plotinus’ conception of the divine ground of being as three hypostases (the One, Intellect, and the Soul) with Trinitarian monotheism’s conception of God. (In the writings of St. Augustine, a modified Plotinian conception entered and enriched Christian theological vocabulary.)

Aristotle states his belief in a single Unmoved Mover in Book 8 of the “Physics” and Book XII of the “Metaphysics.” Aristotle refers to the Unmoved Mover as God. (Greek didn’t have capital vs. lowercase letters back then, but Aristotle says “the god” rather than “a god” in the Greek when discussing the Unmoved Mover, which is equivalent to the modern English God/god distinction.) Just as Augustine integrated the Neoplatonism of Plotinus into Christian theology, Aquinas did the same for Aristotle some centuries later.

In both Plotinus (and Plotinus would have argued, in Plato) and in Aristotle, what we see is the pagan mind coming to the conclusion that while higher beings (gods as they would say, angels and demons as we would say) exist, there is only one Being, i.e., only one God.

The situation is similar in Hinduism. Over time, Hindu philosophers began to think of most of the devas (gods) as just avatars of a single divine One. Depending on the Hindu tradition, one reads of a triune aspect to this One (the famous Brahma/Vishnu/Siva triad) or sees one aspect referred to as the supreme Lord (Ishvara) or sees reference to a more impersonal ground of being (Brahman, not to be confused with Brahma). Modern Advaita Vedanta centers on the attempt to unite the self (Atman) with the divine Self (Brahman).

I’m not deeply versed in Norse myth, but if you read “Celtic Heritage” by Alwyn and Brinley Reese, you’ll see that the Druidic Irish paganism and Brahminical Indian paganism preserved striking similarities from their shared Indo-European origin, despite being at opposite geographic poles of Indo-European expansion. So it seems to me that if Hinduism evolved toward Advaita Vedanta (the reigning orthodoxy in much of modern India), and late Greco-Roman paganism evolved toward the monism of Plotinus, then Druidry and Norse paganism would have evolved similarly if they had lasted long enough.

I should note that the pagan conceptions I’m talking about are really “henotheistic” rather than strictly monotheistic, for the most part, i.e., they posit a supreme God over all the gods. But the move toward increasing conceptual separation between the One God and the lesser gods (who really are more like angels and demons than independent peers of the one God) is apparent in the historical evolution of pagan thought throughout Eurasia. Tribal “Great Spirit” concepts elsewhere indicate similar conceptions of a greater God behind the mere gods.

Note, too, that Judaism started henotheistically as well! The earliest strata of Old Testament material refer to God as the great king over all the other Near Eastern gods. The pure monotheistic conception comes later. Even in Christian writers like Augustine, you don’t see disbelief in the Roman gods, so much as a hunch that they probably do exist, but must be demons (i.e., fallen angels). Thus, the difference between a henotheist who seeks union with the One and ignores the mere gods as just illusory shadows, and a monotheist who seeks union with God and refuses worship to mere demons, may matter semantically, but may not amount to much in lived spiritual practice.

Anyway, sorry for a rambling answer. I hope it was helpful. Feel free to ask again if not!

Nick Corrado

Wow, thanks! Hart’s book is already on my list, and I’m familiar with all of Feser’s stuff, but not with the Hindu and Celtic claims. I’ll check out the Celtic Heritage book when I can, but does it elaborate on the idea that Druidry and Norse would have evolved that way? Perhaps better, does it offer anything against the idea that, say, just as polytheism tends toward henotheism and then monotheism, monotheism tends toward polytheism? If monotheism weren’t “privileged” here, then the trend is a weak argument.

HornOrSilk

I would warn people about the claims from Hinduism, not because there is no truth to it, but because it is a bit simplistic in relation to the Hindu tradition. The West, for the most part, have been given Vedanta since the end of the 19th century, and with it, mostly Advaita, but there are many other forms of Hinduism and of Vedanta. Shankara was influenced a great deal from Mahayana Buddhism (even if he moved toward Hindu myth), but after him, just for Vedanta, came Ramanuja (who is probably a better source for Christians to study, since he moved away from pantheism) and then Madhva (outright dualistic Hinduism, which of course, has aspects of value, but then moves toward the promotion of popular piety which is polytheistic). Shankara’s Hinduism is not the normative, and indeed, is early in the Hindu renaissance.

Of course, I give this caveat, not because I think we should avoid engaging Hindu philosophy, nor that I think we should avoid Shankara, but rather, to recognize that the over-emphasis on Shankara and Advaita hurts a true appreciation of Hinduism, good and bad.

Nick,
First of all, everything HornOrSilk says is correct and very helpful: although some sectors of Hinduism buttress my case, Hinduism is vast and varied, and much of it is quite unlike Advaita Vedanta.

As to “Celtic Heritage”: no, the book doesn’t get into monotheism, Norse religion, or how Druidic religion in Ireland might’ve evolved absent St. Patrick. I only mention the book because (a) it’s delightful, and (b) it backs up my point that Druidry had a lot in common with early Hinduism due to shared Indo-European roots. The counterfactual claim that Druidry or Norse paganism “would have” evolved toward monotheism is just my own hunch based on the path the Greeks and Indians, who had been civilized sooner, followed. To be clear: I have no source to cite for it, and make the claim only on my own (nonexistent!) authority. But I think it’s a plausible hunch.

As to whether monotheism tends toward polytheism or is privileged: well, some Reformed writers argued that us Catholics descended into polytheism with the saints, angels, and Mary. Which of course I think is just a failure to distinguish latria (worship due only to God) from dulia (veneration, due to saints, angels, etc.).

But the larger point is that IF monotheism were just a sort of cultural fad, then you would expect it to wax and wane in popularity vis-a-vis polytheism. But since you’ve read Feser, you know that there are important classical theist arguments that claim (correctly, IMHO) that monotheism can be deductively demonstrated to be true. If these arguments are indeed deductively demonstrable, then moving from polytheism to monotheism is more (broadly) akin to moving to a truer mathematical or scientific worldview than it is to moving to an intellectual fad. If, further, moving to monotheism is more like discovering a mathematical or scientific truth than like following a fashion, then it would indeed be theoretically “privileged” in the sense that one wouldn’t expect people who have absorbed the classical theist arguments to revert to polytheism anymore than one would expect someone with, say, an adequate grasp of modern non-Euclidean geometries to revert to thinking of Euclid’s parallel postulate as a necessary truth. One doesn’t tend to abandon convictions rooted in deductive demonstration the way one might, say, abandon faith rooted only in emotional affect.

How is, say, Aquinas’ First Way, or Aristotle’s discussion of an Unmoved Mover, dependent upon faith rather than reason? Do you mean that the logical demonstrations depend upon insufficiently grounded axiomata, or something else?

Considering that polytheism produced almost all the great figures of the ancient world, I don’t think this monotheist, at least, has any grounds to claim to be superior! I have my good moments, but polytheists like, e.g., Solon, Socrates, Epictetus, M. Atilius Regulus, and Scipio Africanus were all far, far better men than I. If I was smug, I apologize.

As for modern polytheists: it’s not all fluffy bunny Wicca out there. There are some very admirable, very thoughtful, very adult people involved with neo-paganism. I’ve had the pleasure to know a few.

I don’t happen to share their theology, but that doesn’t mean I can’t respect and admire them as people. If my response felt dismissive of your tradition, I apologize again.

capaxdei

This dark enlightenment thing sounds like Dungeons and Dragons for people who live in their own basements.

HornOrSilk

No. Dungeons and Dragons at least has intelligence as an integral part of character creation.

Mark S. (not for Shea)

And those with the low Wisdom scores become Wiccans and Asatruans. Get rid of all those pesky dice and just pretend all day long.

Sally Wilkins

Wow. Just wow.

Petey

exactly.

Andy, Bad Person

I particularly like:

Is there anyone here who would like to join with me in forming some new
Christian churches that completely reject Cultural Marxism? These
churches would be pro-western, would have elements of Orthodoxy in that
they would have liturgies for people of European ancestry. These
churches would not ask whites to commit suicide via immigration and
adoption; they would actually be healthy.

We already have those. They’re called Episcopalian, and they’re empty.

brian_in_brooklyn

You might want to actually visit an Episcopal church, or at least read about the church, before making such an inane comment.http://www.episcopalchurch.org/

Andy, Bad Person

I have. While their official policies read like tepid go-with-the-culture boilerplate, their liturgical life is standard Rich White Guys Doing English Stuff.

brian_in_brooklyn

Wow, I thought even Roman Catholics thought that bearing false witness was a sin–guess I was wrong.

No holds barred when you’re bashing heretics, eh? :-/

Andy, Bad Person

Your experiences may be different than mine, I don’t appreciate just being called an outright liar about what I’ve seen.

Mark S. (not for Shea)

Those “darkies” are the future of the Church. So as a member of the “pales” (Is that the right word?), on behalf of all my pastey-faced family and friends, I say, “Welcome! Thank you for filling our churches. Please bring more.”
.
It also bears mentioning that the Head of our Church, the Lord Jesus Christ who now sits at the right hand of the Father, is HImself a “darkie” by these folks’ standards.

Ken

On that note, “I feel ya, besides I can’t honestly look my blue eyed kids in the eyes
and honestly tell them they’re descended from the tribes of Abraham.”

Was Abraham and his descendants “blue eyed?” I guess they mean a bunch of white people? Not sure that was the case… Guessing they were pretty dark skinned to live in their climate.

Share your welcome to all the “darkies.” Love seeing the full spectrum of God’s love in the universal, not segregated, church. We let everyone in!!! They even let me in!!!

Donna

Actually, his point is that Abraham and his descendants were not blue-eyed .Therefore, he claims, his own blue-eyed children cannot be “children of Abraham ” . He is repudiating Pope Paul VI famous line that Christians are “spiritual Semites” , saying that blood trumps faith.

Ken

Okay, thanks for the clarification. I was not familiar with the quote.

JayHershberger

As an aspiring Catholic (my family begins RCIA this fall) this sickens me. One of the things that strikes me about the Catholic Church is just how diverse it really is. I am used to WASP churches with middle class sensibilities. Now I attend and observe mass and see different ethnic and socio-economic classes worshipping together. This seems more reflective of the Scriptures. If these people wish to put labels on it, they can, but to do so misses the point: Christ came to save the human race…

Ken

Welcome to the church! I’m a convert as well. These people are in the far, small minority. The good news for me is that the Church allows anyone in. Without this low standard my sinful nature would never be allowed into something so wonderful. It also can allow other people that harbor some plain stupid ideas to also be in the church. We can all do better. Let’s pray for these people they really need it.

JayHershberger

Thanks, Ken. As a recovering Protestant, and one for whom fundamentalism was a bitter experience, I have to be careful not to become frustrated (ie, I am trying to get away from such types in Protestantism, only to find that the same mindset exists among some in the Church, etc.). However, one big difference is that unlike in Protestantism, such people in the Church do not actually speak on behalf of the Church with the authority of the Church. And THAT is refreshing and comforting to me.

Ken

If I were to walk into my church on Sunday and ask the average person what they thought of this 99-100% would be disgusted by it. It’s easy to allow the loud minority to cloud our judgement about the vast majority of the church.

Stay in touch and let us know how your formation is going. I’ll offer my Rosary up for you and your family today. You’re going to love the Church. It will be awesome. God’s grace is going to be flowing like a river.

Joe

Meanwhile, people at WASP Church are saying, “Uh oh, looks like that Jay Hershberger has gone native!”

They do realize that if the Church were a racial religion, it would be Jewish, right? As a white man of Irish and Scottish decent, I’m glad that Jesus and the Apostles did not see it that way! Otherwise, I probably would have been raised druidish

Ken

Come on dude don’t you know your early church history? The way the authorities were able to identify the early followers was because they were the only white people. Are you forgetting about the healing of the sunburned white masses living in the Holy Land. It’s in the Bible some where!

We can laugh at such obvious stupidity.

Rebecca Fuentes

If someone leaves the Catholic Church because it has become to “Brown”, I really have doubts about their knowledge of it and commitment to it in the first place. Give it a few more generations and not only will the Catholic Church in the USA have more color than not, the USA will, too.

Because the Klan – a Christian organization (or at least being a Christian was a membership requirement) – was not racially motivated in any way.

Do you remember the war in Bosnia? The ethnic cleansing? It wasn’t that
long ago. That was NOT Muslims attacking Christians, but the reverse. The Inquisition. The Expulsion of Jews from England. The Plantation. The Trail of Tears. Saint Olaf’s predilection for cutting the tongues out of anyone who dared to sing the old songs (or who disagreed with him politically), etc. etc. etc. Some of these are Catholic atrocities, and some were visited upon Catholics by other Christian sects.

Are there bad things and bad people in the pagan movements today? You bet. Ditto in the past. But that doesn’t mean what you seem to be implying. How many “non-believers” did Charlemagne have put to death? How many “witches” were burned at the stake? Are things better today? I don’t know. Ask the gays in Uganda how things are going.

Jared Clark

1. The Klan was anti-Catholic.
2. If you actually read the post, you’ll see it is a criticism of a racially-motivated political group that call themselves “The Dark Enlightenment”.

Dave P.

St. Moses the Abbot, St. Benedict the Moor, St. Martin de Porres, St. Juan Diego, St. Kateri Tekakwitha, St. Josephine Bakhita, Bl. Cyprian Tansi, and all you martyrs of Japan, China, Korea, Vietnam, and Uganda – pray for us!

Dave P.

Also Bl. Peter To Rot.

IRVCath

I was gonna say “St. Lorenzo Ruiz,” but I assume he’s included as a “Martyr of Japan” though he was not Japanese.

Dave P.

St. Francis Xavier, St. Peter Claver, St. Damien de Veuster, St. Katherine Drexel, Bl. Teresa of Calcutta, and you North American Martyrs – pray for us!

Shawna Mathieu

Asatru isn’t a racist religion, and they’re kind of pissed that there are white supremacists who’ve appropriated their religion to cover their racism. A good number of Aryan Nation prison gang members claim they’re Asatru so the prison has to grant them a private place to “worship”.

Leslie Strongcheese

Hey! Let’s all root around the internet for some random anonymous loser’s rant. Let’s ignore the possibility tat it’s just someone else trying to present a caricature of the other side. Let’s ignore the strong possibility that he’s fringe fringe fringe guy. We should certainly discount the idea that he’s just some guy that think’s he’s being clever in his bad hyperbole. It’s much more fun to proclaim a trend. That’s what the bad people sound like all the time. Let’s punish the bad people.

Petey

‘catholic’ means ‘universal, comprehensive, for everyone.’ to use terms like ‘pro-western’ or ‘non-western’ or ‘non-whites’ is to misunderstand at the root, and kind of remarkable for anyone who’s ever been to rome and the vatican. (this is in reaction to some of what i read below.)

The “blue-eyed” comment cracked me up. Mr. Beadgirl and I are half Puerto Rican. Two of our children have blue eyes and the palest skin in existence, and the third has black eyes and brown skin. It’s almost as if skin color and eye color are ultimately meaningless … nah, that can’t be true.

kirthigdon

So again the dark enlightenment and Asatru menace. I guess I’ll be more concerned about these people if I ever encounter one in the world rather than in cyberspace. I have met a sede or two, but they were not racist or Asatru and would not have known what you were talking about if you said “dark enlightenment”.
Kirt Higdon

Catholic pilgrim

I actually know of a Catholic primary school where the parents got very upset that the school was welcoming poor Hispanic & black children from the school neighborhood. Seriously! “Catholic” parents upset over the race of the children. What ever happened to the Biblical commands of Hospitality? Abraham, Gospel people, Saints, etc. Hospitality (along with close-knit parishes) is mostly gone in many Catholic circles. Sad. Would our Lord Jesus be welcomed today if He were in disguise?

IRVCath

Given that the originators of things like Roe v. Wade were (almost, I know Marshall was on the court) all white Anglos, and that a lot of the strongest abortion bans in our world have been enacted in countries that are majority non-white, kicking out the brown people seems to me to be more culturally suicidal.

I also wonder – on their deathbed, would they refuse to receive the last rites from a priest, who, to use their phrase, is a jungle bunny from bongo-bongo land? Would they put race over their own eternal salvation?